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The Civil War Memoirs of Samuel Alonza CookeEDITED BY BILL O'NEAL*THE FOLLOWING DOCUMENT IS AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH WRIT-ten by Samuel Alonza Cooke in 1907, recounting his experiencesduring the Civil War. He was a Confederate volunteer, and hismemoirs relate his participation in the battles of Vicksburg, LookoutMountain, Chickamauga, Atlanta, and Franklin, among other cam-paigns. His reminiscences provide interesting insights into the atti-tudes of Confederate soldiers, as well as details of a number of famousCivil War operations.Cooke was born on January 1, 1840, in Maury County, Tennessee.When he was eight his family moved to the Texas-Louisiana border,settling 41/2 miles south of Caddo Lake. His mother soon fell intoill health, however, and in 1849 the family returned to Tennessee.In 1851 Cooke's mother and eldest sister died, and the remainder ofthe family again moved south. They first located on a farm someeight miles southwest of Mooringsport, Louisiana, and eventuallycrossed into Texas. In 1859 Cooke's father and uncle opened a mer-cantile business in Elysian Fields, west of Shreveport and aboutnine miles into Texas.'Cooke and his older brother were provided with as good an edu-cation as possible. After receiving such local schooling as was avail-able, they were sent to the McKinney Institute near Clarksville,Texas, and later attended a similar institution in Longwood, Louisi-ana. At about this time Cooke's father remarried, much to hisson's displeasure; and, in 1857, Cooke ran away from home. Afterspending several months near Dallas, Cooke was persuaded by hisfather to pursue his education at Jackson College in Columbia, Ten-nessee, a short distance from his birthplace. Upon arrival, however,*Mr. O'Neal is with the History Department of Panola Junior College, Carthage, Texas.These memoirs are published by permission of Lee Cooke, descendant of Samuel AlonzaCooke, who made the material available to the editor. The original manuscript, whichbears the title, "Autobiography of Samuel Alonza Cooke, Concerning His Experiencesin the Civil War of the United States (1861-1865), Written at the Request of HisChildren," is in the possession of C. F. Cooke, Waskom, Texas. Minor changes have beenmade in punctuation to facilitate reading.1The introductory biographical information is drawn from sections of this manuscriptwhich are not included in this publication.